Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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The Corded Ware culture (c. 2900-2450 BCE; CWC) was a prehistoric phenomenon encountered throughout Europe, characterized by standardized material culture and burial practices. Recent studies...Show moreThe Corded Ware culture (c. 2900-2450 BCE; CWC) was a prehistoric phenomenon encountered throughout Europe, characterized by standardized material culture and burial practices. Recent studies incorporating new scientific methods such as ancient DNA and stable isotopes suggest that this phenomenon was the result of mass migrations from the Pontic Caspian steppe, thus confirming traditional hypotheses regarding the origin and fast spread of this archaeological culture. Moreover, the grand narrative of this period includes a notion of a strict binary gender symbolism and even of a ‘male-dominant’, patriarchal society. Such an interpretation of CW gender is however largely rooted in andro- and ethnocentric, Western assumptions, in which biological sex is equated with gender, and weapons (i.e. the CW ‘battle-axe’) are associated with masculinity. This thesis aims to investigate to which extent the CWC indeed had a notion of binary gender, and to better understand how CW gender was expressed through material culture and its selective deposition in different contexts. A practical methodology with a comparative and multi-contextual approach is developed in order to study CW gender. Two case studies have been selected: the Danish administrative region of Southern Jutland, known for its very typical Single Grave practices, and the state of Bavaria in Germany, which is expected to be a focal point in the mobility of people and the exchange of raw materials. The emphasis is placed on the co-occurrences between different object categories and their ‘embodiment’, and different depositional contexts: the funerary context as well as depositions (i.e. buried objects without a body) and single finds. Strikingly, CW gender appears to have been constructed through an interplay of supra-regional and local burial styles and artefacts. The binary dichotomy seen in the funerary context is more likely the result of normative ideas regarding a supra-regional CW identity and – more idiosyncratic – local identities, although gender clearly played a role in these norms. The prehistoric reality of CW gender may thus have been more locally variable than the grand narrative would suggest.Show less
The leading question in this research is how sir Granville St John Orde Browne imagined the ideal colonial labourer in correspondence and reports written in the course of his career, 1885-1945. It...Show moreThe leading question in this research is how sir Granville St John Orde Browne imagined the ideal colonial labourer in correspondence and reports written in the course of his career, 1885-1945. It asks specifically how men and women were represented or omitted within this imagining and why. It is argued that in the context of colonial labour, Orde Browne imagined the ideal colonial labourer as male and hereby excluded women from the realm of wage labour opportunities, instead discursively assigning them to the sphere of domesticity and recommending policies that limited female wage labour opportunities and reified a colonial idealization of wife-hood and motherhood. This exclusion was based on assumptions of women as especially traditional and conservative, a sexualization and associated demoralization of the independent presence of women in the compounds, and women being deemed inferior labourers. Men, on the other hand, were represented as objects of exploitation, whose bodies and minds were to be controlled through colonial policies with the aim of making labour migration as efficient and profitable as possible. Women within this structure were visualized as dependents who could either hinder said effective exploitation through the spread of disease and immorality, or could enable even more efficient and stable exploitation and ensure the reproduction of a future generation of workers.Show less
This thesis focuses on the contemporary queer photography of the artists Zanele Muholi, Momo Okabe, and Zach Blas. More specifically, it examines the role of different theories on gender, queerness...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the contemporary queer photography of the artists Zanele Muholi, Momo Okabe, and Zach Blas. More specifically, it examines the role of different theories on gender, queerness, and photography in connection to queer time and space, haptics, affect, and queer opacity. These aesthetic elements are treated as potentially subversive in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the society of control. The frameworks of both queer and photography theories are employed to analyze the photographs’ formal and political aspects in order to explore their subversive possibilities. My readings and analysis of the photographs suggest that each of these artists deploys aesthetic features as queer tactics to resist the society of control. Additionally, based on the analysis of my own photographic series, Showering with Glasses (2018), I provide an artist’s perspective on possible methods to approach queer aesthetics and the ways in which they might be harnessed as queer tactics. By specifically addressing contemporary queer photography, my hope is to provide insight into what this genre is capable of achieving in the real world.Show less
“Gender studies has mostly concentrated on femininity in issues of patriarchal power. Men’s studies are an emerging field that take feminist scholarship and adds a new viewpoint to it by looking at...Show more“Gender studies has mostly concentrated on femininity in issues of patriarchal power. Men’s studies are an emerging field that take feminist scholarship and adds a new viewpoint to it by looking at the social structure around males. This article defines hegemonic and marginalized masculinities in Egypt and seeks to map out the influence the state has on creation, reproduction, and manipulation of these concepts. Rising from the context of neoliberal reforms, the security state is discriminating against a certain part of the population, especially working-class young men. They feel emasculated by the state authorities, while simultaneously manipulated into conforming to the hegemonic masculinity that the state promotes. Looking at the influence of the Egyptian security state on gender dynamics opens up a possibility to place gender topics into the wider understanding of the significant global patterns.”Show less
The purpose of this research was to expand the debate on gender by incorporating the age debate and by focusing on how different bodies were represented in ancient theories on dietetics. I studied...Show moreThe purpose of this research was to expand the debate on gender by incorporating the age debate and by focusing on how different bodies were represented in ancient theories on dietetics. I studied the representation of healthy and sick menstruating women, pregnant women, elderly, infants and children in ancient medical texts. This research found that dietetics was applied differently based on the condition of the body. The advices given had similar qualities to the body when the body was healthy and seen as well balanced. In contrast, when a healthy body was assumed to be less well balanced the diets employed the theory of ‘opposites cure opposites’. When someone became ill the dietetic advices always focused on curing the patient using the theory of ‘opposites cure opposites’. Most importantly in all treatments countering the diseased state took precedence over rebalancing inherent bodily imbalances. In conclusion, the ideas on different body types found in ancient medical theories were reflected in the application of dietetics. This reflection was more pronounced in advices given to healthy people than in those given to the sick.Show less
Why should the term 'foreign fighter' be applicable to women serving non-violently in transnational insurgencies both past and present? Using case studies of women migrating from western countries...Show moreWhy should the term 'foreign fighter' be applicable to women serving non-violently in transnational insurgencies both past and present? Using case studies of women migrating from western countries to serve in Spain during the Spanish Civil War as well as studying the more recent migration of western women to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria, this thesis explores how female volunteers fit into existing frameworks of the foreign fighter despite often being unrecognised as such.Show less
Through case study research centered on women as the subject, this thesis illustrates the complex questions arising between forced migration, state failure, criminal organizations, and gender-based...Show moreThrough case study research centered on women as the subject, this thesis illustrates the complex questions arising between forced migration, state failure, criminal organizations, and gender-based violence, aiming at providing an insight into the dynamics of female mobility through a gendered security analysis method. The research is focused on the two main perpetrators of violence against women, the state and the organized crime, which mutually activate each other, creating a complex landscape of analysis. Both socio-economic conditions, as well as the state of violence, are analyzed in order to draw a conclusion on the underlying aspects of female mobility from the region. The women are analyzed as independent females in NTCA societies as well as within their role as mothers.Show less
In this thesis I examine concerns about incompetent and effeminate Chinese masculinities within the context of modern Chinese history, with a focus on the works 'Half of Man is Woman' by Zhang...Show moreIn this thesis I examine concerns about incompetent and effeminate Chinese masculinities within the context of modern Chinese history, with a focus on the works 'Half of Man is Woman' by Zhang Xianliang, 'Beijing Comrades' by Bei Tong, and 'Shanghai Baby' by Wei Hui.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
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In deze scriptie wil ik toelichten hoe taal, essentialisme en bepaalde culturele constructies kunnen worden geanalyseerd, versterkt of doorbroken in populaire media. Ik wil dit doen aan de hand van...Show moreIn deze scriptie wil ik toelichten hoe taal, essentialisme en bepaalde culturele constructies kunnen worden geanalyseerd, versterkt of doorbroken in populaire media. Ik wil dit doen aan de hand van Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea-serie. De reden waarom ik zal betogen dat deze romanserie relevant is voor deze discussie is de manier waarop de serie omgaat met verschillende en vaak tegenstrijdige vertogen. Een belangrijk thema in deze scriptie is de (magische) werking van taal en hoe taal de wereld construeert en deconstrueert.Show less
This thesis focuses on the representation of Jewish women in Czech Holocaust prose, providing a comparative analysis of Arnošt Lustig's The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S., Jan Otčenášek's...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the representation of Jewish women in Czech Holocaust prose, providing a comparative analysis of Arnošt Lustig's The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S., Jan Otčenášek's Romeo, Juliet and Darkness and Ladislav Fuks's The Cremator.Show less
The influential relationship between the two twentieth century philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida has profoundly challenged the way we perceive philosophy’s responsibility toward the...Show moreThe influential relationship between the two twentieth century philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida has profoundly challenged the way we perceive philosophy’s responsibility toward the other. While these philosophers in an ongoing exchange broach the question of the other’s response, there remains the question if the other can also respond to what they say. Challenging the attainability of “successful” dialogue, this thesis examines the limits of thinking the response of the other philosophically. It does this through an innovative reading of “At This Very Moment in This Work Here I Am,” a remarkable text by Derrida in which he examines what it means to write a response to the works of Levinas. It shows how such a response, in view of what Levinas writes, must necessarily fail. My reading of this text shows that we must nevertheless embrace the possibility of failure, even if it means putting Levinas’s entire work at risk, since the very finitude of my own response is also what allows the other to come in and respond. Seen this way, I propose that a reading specifically aimed at the “failures” at work in Derrida’s response to Levinas can be a viable strategy not only to arrive at a better understanding of this text, but also to come up with responses of our own.Show less
This thesis examines the gender representation in the animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender by analyzing several male and female characters of the series. Gender theories by Judith Bulter...Show moreThis thesis examines the gender representation in the animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender by analyzing several male and female characters of the series. Gender theories by Judith Bulter served as the main sources for this thesis.Show less
Over the past decade, the Netherlands has performed evidently worse in terms of gender inequality in its labour market compared to other European countries. The psychological model of implicit bias...Show moreOver the past decade, the Netherlands has performed evidently worse in terms of gender inequality in its labour market compared to other European countries. The psychological model of implicit bias, gaining popularity within the academic world as well as public discourses, is thought to account for such structural and persistent gender inequality. According to the implicit bias model, people harbour mental associations with the words ‘female’ and ‘male’, eliciting subtle forms of discrimination, with gender inequality as a consequence. It is my contention that the model of implicit bias is inadequate in order to account for structural and persistent gender inequality in the Dutch labour market. I will argue that the implicit bias model is inherently based on a dualistic ontoepistemological framework that is problematic from a feminist philosophical perspective. Grounding my arguments in the theories of the feminist philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, and Linda Martín Alcoff, I will show that theories of implicit bias overlook that (1) gender knowledge cannot be viewed independently from its producer and that (2) there is no reality of gender outside of the discursive. Based on the onto-epistemological findings on gender production, established throughout my thesis, I will introduce a non-dualistic framework from which gender inequality in the Dutch labour market can and should be studied, which I refer to as gender transactionalism. In this transactionalist model, gender inequality in the Dutch labour market is understood as the continuous transaction between unequal gender knowledges and the performativity of these genders as visible within our everyday lives. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research will be discussed.Show less
The study delves into the convoluted relationship between women and war and analysis the reasons that led Israel and Palestine to admit women in their combat units in the early 2000s.
